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A DISCOURSE 



BY THE REV. A. D.BENEDICT. 



A DISCOURSE 

DELITEfiED L\ ST. JOHIS'S CHVBCH, DELHI, IT. T., 
ON 

THE NATIONAL FAST DAY, JAN. 4th, 1861, 

BY 

THE R,EV, JiL. ID. BEISTEDldT, 

RECTOR OP THE CHURCH. 



PobUilied by reqaeit. 



<GrAZBTTB PRINT, DELHI. 



•5" 



To those friends who hare kindly deemed the following discourse ■wor- 
thy of a more extended notice than was furnished by its delivery on the 
day of our National Fast, and -who indulge the hope that its words may 
do gcad in the present sad condition of our country, it is now affectionate- 
ly inscribed by their friend and Paetor, 

THE AUTHOR. 



DISCOURSE, 



'• God is our refuge and strength, a yery present help in trouble." 

rs. 46, 1. 

-'• Ve are brethren ! Why do ye wrong one to another ?" — Acta 7, 26. 

A little more than eleven years since, the proclamation 
of our chief Executive called us to the observance of a na- 
tional fast. Then, ravaging pestilence was filling our fair 
land with desolation and mourning. God seemed to be re- 
buking our nation in His wrath, and chastening us in His 
sore displeasure. From North to South, from the Ocean to 
our westward wall of mountains, there was one common 
cry of lamentation over the realized or prospective visita- 
tion of a terrific disease. Trouble and consternation sat 
upon every countenance. We were fellow sufferers under 
a common calamity. 

But now, another and entirely different trouble has caus- 
ed the President to designate this a« a day of fasting, hu- 
miliation and prayer. Hardly have the last of our Revo- 
lutionary heroes been laid in their graves, ere that highly 
prized boon of peace and national independence, so ardu- 
ously struggled for, so dearly won, is endangered. Not by 
foes abroad, (for then we could bear it,) but by those worse 



and more fearful enemiei, diiaeniion and distrust and hosr 
tility within. The house ii diyided against itself. The 
eye is saying to the hand, "I have no need of thee," and 
again the head to the feet, " I have no need of you." The 
memberg of the body are forgetting their necessary depend- 
ence upon each other. There is too much indifference to 
the preservation of that political form, into which the God 
pf nations and of battles has breathed a healthy national 
life, and by which we have grown into a vigorous and pros- 
perous manhood. Mutual confidence is destroyed. We 
jcannot disguise the fact that it is indeed a time of trouble. 
Intercourse between the great North and the great South 
pf pur vast country is almost suspended ; monetary affairs 
are deranged ; commerce and trade have received a para- 
lyzing shock ; thousands are thrown out of employment ; 
not a nook and corner of our land but feels the breaking up 
pf that confidence which has heretofore cemented the Con^ 
federate States of our Union. 

Now, it is not my design, or my duty, to take the stand 
of the statesman, or of the political partizan, and unfold 
the cause or causes of the dangers which threaten our 
peace and lafety, to point out a remedy for our evils in 
special Congressional measures, to say what should be con- 
ceded on the part of the North or the South, in order to 
prevent the bursting of that dark cloud which overspreads 
pur political sky. Enough that we are in trouble ; that 
jnen's hearts are "failing them for fear." Enough that 
human wisdom is powerless in this terrible exigency of our 
country's existence. As an embassador for the Most High, 
it ig my duty to direct you all, irrespective of your politi- 
cal preferences or opinions, to a God that judgeth the 
earth, to- humble yourselves before Him against whom we 
all have sinned, and to beseech Him that He "turn away 
from His fierce anger that we perish not." I can speak as 
pne who loves the Upion, and who is sensible that the 
Ibrightness of our civil heritage depends upon its preserva- 



iDiuii. Tliat extreme view, Uiai our Roiniljlic mav us \\i-\i 
be disuieinbered and smitteji into {'rHgrnents, h;ia none of 
my sympathy. They, who profess indirterence, or who, un- 
der the heat of misguided and intemperate zeal, woidd 
knsfcn such an issue, know not what they do. Our great 
ganger is, lest the crumbling process, precipitately com- 
menced, be allowed to contiijuo without concern or care 
for the ultimate disastrous results: lest passion hold the 
sceptre over reason and judgnjept: lest upon either side 
there be such a willingness to let the conflagration take its 
course, that after regret and repentance will be without 
avail. I cannot yet bring my own n)ind to the conclusion 
that any initiatory steps, which have already been taken, 
^re to result in a final and inevitable separation. Still our 
position is a perilous one. I humbly trust that God in His 
wise Providence may avert such a dire calamity— the tur- 
moil and sore dissensions and probable bloodshed which 
would be the certain result. And therefore I rejoice that 
from the highest office in our land there has issued such a 
call as has brought us from our homes to-day, a summons 
to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, to be- 
seech Him to "punish us not according to our sins, nor re- 
ward us according to our miquities." 

Our hope is truly in Jehovah. He only can harmonize 
the antagonistic elements and forces which are now work- 
ing in the problem of our country's history. He only can 
overrule and speak peace to our troubled political sea. 
May there be one general turning to Him for relief: may 
the incense from thousands and tens of thousands of altars 
throughout our land this day be so acceptable in His si^ht, 
that He may stay deserved chastisements and continue to 
us the blessings of peace and prosperity. 

Were He now to speak to us from the cloud of His ma- 
jestic presence, would there not be brought to our ears an 
earnest and compassionate appeal like that of Moses to his 
contending countrymen, viz : "Ye are brethren! why do 



• G 

ve wrong oiio to anolher?" li is worth the while lor us 
to go back (o lirst j)ri:icipU-.s, and ask what we arc, what 
we ought to expt'ct of ourBelvt'8, what a gazing worhi 
ought to see now nuitiitestetl in our conduct as American 
citizens, as paiilors, and as rhri.stians,nt the present crisis. 
We arc bi'ethren. Not niere'y because we belong to the 
great brotherhood of a common humanity, but because we 
are to a great extent of the same race. The current of 
Anfflo-Suxon blood r)redominates. England is our mother. 
We all speak the same language. In our laws, our social 
habits, our literature, our educational establishments, and 
many other respects we shew the same family likeness. 
Despite all the diil^erences that may be alleged, we are all 
as branches of the same vine. States that have been ad- 
ded to the original thirteen, have sought admission on the 
ground of a common congeniality of feeling and interest, 
they have asked our nurture and care because of their fil- 
ial relationship, they have not in a single instance been ex- 
otics, but as our own indigenous plants, as offshoots from 
our body politic. Our own sons and daughters have gone 
out and increased and asked to be acknov.dedged legitimate 
and worthy members of our political family. Besides all 
this, we are bound together by other ties of affiliation. 
Who has not near or distant relatives in one or more of the 
disaffected States, those bearing our own name and family 
features, those whose interests and duties and attachments 
bind them to remain, perhaps to spend their lives with 
those who look upon that vexing subject of contention with 
far different eyes from our own? These ties between the 
members of scattered families throughout our Union draw 
the States together. Georgia and Louisiana are not as far 
from us seemingly as Canada. They have as States a fa- 
mily and filial interest, because of our love for certain of 
their acknowledged citizens. Our hearts are there. We 
deprecate civil conflict as truly the warring of brother with 
brother. 



Yt't f'arLlier. Wo are brethren poIitiViilly. Si.lo bv «!(!♦» 
we struggled lor a distinct existt-iu-e .-jikI luitiunjilitv. Di- 
verse local interests at the first uuide the, drawiDi: ot' a com- 
mon instrument of adoption no easy task lor our lorefath- 
ers. What deserved blessings have been poured upon the 
heads of those patriot heroes, who so patiently and self 
sacrificingly labored to cement the different parts of our 
Union in one common whole ! One in independence^ otte 
in feeling the necessity of severance from the mother coun- 
try, they were 7iot one in other respects. The representa- 
tives from the several Colonies did not Inolc nVike, or fee/. 
alike. One had one interest, and another another which 
must be respected under a National confederation. It was 
no slight work to draft satisfactory articles of compromise, 
to make such a Union as Providence has since smiled upon 
in mercy and loving kindness. Yet slavery was recogniz- 
ed. None, because of its existence, can deny that God has 
blessed us as a whole. W^here have any people been so 
signally favored of Heaven since the peace of 17S3 ? 
Where have there been better secured to the citizen the 
blessings of wise and equitable laws ? Indeed, what coun- 
try can now boast of such a general care for the masses, of 
such a bright sun of civilization and general enlightenment 
as shines in our political horizon ? What then is the legi- 
timate and worthy conclusion to be drawn from our previ- 
ous national prosperity ? Why, surely, that that adopted 
family on which Heaven has so auspiciously smiled, 
that confederation which was fcrmed by concess'un .^nd 
compromise, may in like manner be maintained a -id pre- 
served. The spuit that reigned in the breasts of the patri- 
ot sages of the Revolution, should still reign in our ^' 'ion- 
al councils and our individual hearts. If our exp. aent 
of living as a family under one common parental p- •! had 
been productive of 710 success ; if domestic quarr-is and 
disasters of various kinds had continually attended our ef- 
fort to be a united people, then it might be questioned. 



t^hether we ought to Ijave entered into such a compact, 
But, instead of this, we have been united, so that the com- 
mon body has a consolidated individual strength above any 
aggregate which the Colonies as separate existences could 
possibly have attained. Union has made our country w^hat 
it is. God has blessc^d us beyond l^hat the wisest seers of 
the Revolution would have ventured to predict. He has 
lilted our confederate nation to a lofty and honored posi- 
tion. We are no'A- holding the balance of power in our 
own hands, far more than the governments of the old 
world would be v/illing to acknowledge. Our voice is res- 
pected, our power feared. Not a cotintry any where but is 
glad oi our friendship, not one that would not deprecate 
our wrath. Our flag is sacred on the seas. The stars and 
stripes forbid aggression from the spoiler. We have, in a 
word, a national name and a national power which God, 
the Ruler of nations, has given us. Shall we, in a moment 
of madness, dash our cup of blessings to the earth ? Shall 
the physician kill his patient, in his efforts to cure him ? 
Shall w^e by our pride and obstinacy reduce ourselves to 
such an insignificant position, that every petty kingdom 
of the world can point at us in scorn, and write upon our 
monumental stone, viz; "Her gloty is departed?" 

In other respects also, w^e are brethren. Nature and art 
bind us together with their strongest ties. The mighty 
river that empties into the Gulf stretches out upon each 
side her many branches, clasping at least two-thirds of the 
Confederate States in her embrace,forbidding the idea, that 
the free use of her waters should be the subject of treaties, 
or the cause of hostile contention. And then, what a vast 
net work of internal improvements is as the veins and ar- 
teries of our body, politic, furnishing easy and rapid com- 
munication for the traveller, cultivating habits of unres- 
trained intercourse, inviting a constant interchange of pro- 
ducts and manufactures, making us, in a word, mutually 
dependent, proving most conclusively, that we mherit the 



same coinniou life, that we ought to regard each other aa 
brethren. 

Tlie question, whctlier the Nortli or the South could stand 
the better alone, is a minor matter, when there rises up be- 
fore us the grave and momentous duty of" preserving the 
Union entire. Our work is to keep the ship from thunder- 
ing ; whether in case of wreck, the prow or the stdrn will 
sooner be submerged, is of little consequence at the present 
crisis. The signs of the times already show that terrible 
loss and disaster will scourge both portions of the country, 
when the ties that bind us, shall have been finally severed. 
Each is necessary to the other. We have made ourselves 
mutually dependent. We liave lived too long in friendly 
counsel to cast each other off at the last as worthless ap- 
pendages, to try to treat the other as strangers, much less 
as deadly enemies. 

So also, in Ecclesiastical relations, we must regard the 
South as brethren. The Protestant Episcopal Church, amid 
the wildest strifes of party excitement, has ever refrained 
from that perplexing theme of dispute which has rent oth- 
er religious Ijodies in simder. She has firmly withstood 
the most urgent pressure > from without to pronounce 
blessings upon one set of political opinions, and pour 
forth curses on another. Her voice has ever been for 
peace. Bretlu-en from the South and North have met to- 
gether, and consulted for the interests of Christ's kingdom, 
each loving, the other for the one ruling desire to do good 
to all men, believing that the bond as well as the free may 
all be oae in Christ Jesus. Hence, we have maintained a 
great conservative influence in the land. As those who 
take no party attitude, we labor for peace. We deprecate 
division. We pray in our every Litany, to be delivered 
"from all sedition, privy conspiracy, and rebellion. ' We 
feel that our American branch of the Church has a great 
and glorioui work for our vast countrjs and for a fallen 
world generally, to accomplish. Separation and dismem- 



10 

berment would be a sad and rude Bhock to those grand 
Missionary enterprises, which unitedly, in faith and prayer 
have been so auspiciously inangurated and are now so zeal- 
ously prosecuted. Far be the day, when for the last time in 
General (Convention we meet as brethren for fraternal coun- 
sel and legislation, when the formation of another confede- 
racy and the bitterness of popular feeling in consequence 
of civil division, force upon us the necessity of another and 
separate branch of the Church of Christ. It is hard to 
believe that this can ever be. With one mind and one 
spirit we have labored together, knowing no North or 
Southjin our zeal for preaching a spiritual liberty to all the 
captive bound souls of sin and Satan. We would still la- 
bor together — hand in hand proclaiming the same blessed 
Gospel, — praying for the same President and Congress — 
beseeching the Most High to pour out upon us the spirit of 
" unity, peace, and concord." 

Since then we are thus manifestly brethren, the question 
arises, "Why do ye wrong one to another?" No domes- 
tic difficulty has not its two sides of complaint. Each is 
likely to accuse the other as the aggressor and the more 
culpable. The particular causes of complaint on either 
part of the two hostile sections of our unhappy land, I 
seek not to unfold. On each side, charges of wrong doing, 
unfaithfulness, and indifference to the other's rights are 
abundant. We must all bear witness to the truth,that what 
has been held right in principle has not always, been prose- 
cuted with a right temper and spirit. Language, from the 
press and even from the pulpit, has been often employed, 
directly adapted not only, but intended to wound and exas- 
perate. There has been too much of the enemy; too little 
of the friend. Too much overbearance; too little forbear- 
ance. Too much anger, and animosity, and uncharitable- 
ness; too little of that kindness and forgiveness for those in 
the wrong, which becometh the Gospel of Christ. 

Brethren have drawn the sword, when they ought to 



11 

have waved the olive branch. They have sought to caU 
down liro from heaven, even under the gentle rebuke of 
their Divine Master, viz : "Ye know not what manner of 
spirit ye are of." They have not been patient with evil in 
others, as the j\[ost Higii has been patient with the evil in 
themselves. Because they have discovered spots in the 
sun, they have striven in their zeal to wrench it at once 
from its place in the heavens. They have not followed the 
Apostle's advice to " love as brethren, forbearing one an- 
other and forgiving one another in love," but have the ra- 
ther, been too willing to say and do that, which would irri- 
tate and provoke. Hence as a consequence, the house ia 
divided. Brothers and sisters are arraying themselves in 
hostility. We hear C7wj/gh of contention, too little of peace 
and reconciliation. Ah ! we are both in the wrong. The 
spirit of brethren would never have brought us to such a 
lamentable crisis. Who is not ashamed of the humiliating 
spectacle of a great and powerful nation, thus hfting the 
suicidal weapon for its own destruction ! ! 

What, in such a state of things, is our hope? The cloud 
grows darker and darker. The gathering tempest seems 
just ready to burst upon our heads. " God is our refuge 
and strength, a very present help in trouble." When the 
wisdom of man fails, then we should the more urgently re- 
alize our dependence upon Him whose Providence governs 
tiie world. He can even now overrule our country's trou- 
bles, bring order out of confusion, and save us from the dis- 
astrous? results of dismemberment. It is true that we de- 
serve such a chastisement as a nation. We have forgotten 
God in our prosperity. Our blessings have swollen our 
hearts with pride and wantonness. We have provoked the 
Most High to cast us off forever. Still we turn to Him in 
this our hour of trouble. May there be such a general 
casting of our cares and anxieties upon Him, that He may 
" turn away from His fierce anger that we perish not." 
Even Nineveh was saved, in consequence of a general hu- 



12 

miliation, and fasting, and prayer. The cloud of judgment 
did not burst. The bolts of Heaven did not descend. A 
Kation humbly prostrate before God to-day would be our 
salvation. Possibly, the earnest intercession of the fifty or 
even ten righteous ; of humble bands of Christian men and 
women here and there throughout our land, may induce 
the Almighty to recall the winds, and speak peace to our 
troubled waters. Let us then pray in faith, and humility, 
and perseverance. That if it is His will, we may be saved: 
but if not, that we may receive a salutary lesson from His 
calamitous visitations ; that we may know and feel that it 
is not without a wise and important end,that mournful dis- 
memberment is suffered to crush our once happy land in 
sorrow to the dust. For, most important as are now our 
political interests ; anxious as every one of us muse be with 
regard to the revelations of the very few weeks that lie 
immediately before us ; intent as we all are upon the solu- 
tion of the Problem, whether we are to be united or brok- 
en up into two or more confederacies, or indeed, whether 
there are to be as many separate governments to dot our 
fair land as there are States in the Union ; full of absorbing 
concern as is this whole matter for ourselves and future 
generations ; still, it is for our happiness and consolatioB, 
that, as Christians, we can rest implicitly in Him Who 
holds the sceptre over all the nations and sovereignties of 
earth. He can bring good out of evil. He can and will 
order all things for the ultimate good of His people. Let 
us, then, now and ever, make Him "our refuge ano 

STitKNQTB, OUR VERY PRESENT HELP IN TROUBLE." 









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